Patience Forbes didn’t make mistakes.
She slowed her pace as the cowboy motel came into view and she saw Forest standing outside his bunk door. Without his hat, his black hair shone shiny and rich in the sunlight and his features were more sharply defined.
Why was he just standing there, as if waiting for her? She’d been abrupt...no, she’d been downright rude when he’d introduced himself to her earlier that day. Why would he want to see or speak to her again?
Maybe he was just waiting for another cowboy to join him to go to dinner. Surely that was it. His handsome, sculptured features transformed into something softer as she drew closer, and he smiled at her.
The warmth of his smile shifted something inside her, heated a place in her stomach she didn’t know existed. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.
“Good evening,” he said.
She nodded and pulled her bunk room key from her back pocket. Before she could put the key into the lock, he lightly touched her forearm and then immediately dropped his hand to his side.
“Dr. Forbes?”
She turned to look at him, struck for the second time that day by the beauty of his bright blue eyes. “Yes?”
“There’s a barn dance next Friday night and I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.”
“A barn dance?” she parroted in surprise. Was he asking her out for a date? The very thought boggled her mind. She’d certainly given him no indication that she would be remotely open to the possibility of anything like that. “Why would I want to go to a barn dance?” she asked.
He shrugged. “To enjoy the local flavor, to step away from your work for a night of fun...maybe let down your hair a little bit.”
“My hair is down and I’m here to work. Thanks, but no thanks.” She unlocked her door and stepped inside and closed it behind her.
She immediately sank down on the twin bed, still stunned that he’d actually asked her out. She was thirty years old and the last time a man had asked her out on a date was during her college years, and that had been a huge mistake.
Why on earth would he want to spend any time with her, given the fact that she’d been so...so unlikeable since she’d arrived?
She tossed her key on top of the nearby chest of drawers and then headed for the tiny bathroom where a refreshing shower awaited.
As she stood beneath a tepid spray of water to wash off the dirt and dust of the day, she tried not to think about the handsome cowboy who had asked her out to a barn dance.
Instead she focused on all the reasons she’d chosen to be unlikeable over the course of the years. She’d learned early in her career that being a petite red-haired woman with big green eyes made people doubt her abilities.
She’d had to work twice as hard, twice as long as men in her field to gain the recognition and respect of the people she worked with and for.
She didn’t like to be distracted from her work, and a hot, handsome cowboy would definitely be a major distraction. She had no desire for a relationship, so there was no point in being nice or dating. Her snarky attitude kept people at bay and that was the way she liked it.
She got out of the shower, dried off and then pulled a lightweight purple cotton nightshirt over her head. She grabbed a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and a new bag of cheese puffs from her stash of food and then settled on the bed.
She reached beneath the bed and tugged out a plastic bag filled with tabloids. She grabbed one of the slick magazines and opened it to begin to read.
This was how she lived, vicariously through the colorful pictures and outlandish articles about people she didn’t know, people she would never meet. It was safe and uncomplicated.
It was just after noon the next day when Devon drew Patience’s attention to the tent door. He stepped outside and she followed him, a slight breeze providing welcome relief from the stifling heat inside the tent.
Devon pointed to where a horse trailer had pulled up to a nearby small corral. “I heard from Adam Benson that a new horse was being delivered today. It’s a wild horse that hasn’t seen much human contact.”
“I didn’t know that you and the ranch foreman were so friendly,” she replied.
“He’s a nice man. I’ve had dinner with him a couple of times at the café in town.”
Patience turned her attention back to the corral. Unlike her, Devon often made nice with the locals when they were working a case.
She recognized Forest as one of the men who got out of the truck that had backed up the trailer to the corral gate. He moved from the front of the truck to the back of the trailer with an unusual grace for a big man and opened the door.
A huge black horse exploded out backward and then bucked and kicked across the corral’s arena to the opposite side of the enclosure.
The truck pulled away and Forest closed the corral gate and then rested a foot on the lower rung of the wooden fence and watched the horse.
“The men say he’s a horse whisperer,” Devon said.
“What does that mean?” she asked, wondering why she cared a bit about what others might say about Forest Stevens.
“It means he has a special touch, that he can communicate with wild horses and work with them to learn to trust human beings. From what I understand, it’s a true gift.”
“Interesting,” she replied and stepped back into the entrance of the tent to get back to work. What was definitely interesting and irritating had been Forest invading her dreams the night before.
Patience almost never dreamed, but when she did, it was either about the case she was working on or a story she’d read in one of her tabloids before going to sleep. She definitely didn’t dream about big, hot cowboys with brilliant blue eyes and warm smiles...until last night.
She’d dreamed they’d been at a barn dance, which in and of itself had been odd since she’d never been to such an event in her entire life. Still, they’d been in a barn and there had been music and laughter and he’d held her tight in his big, strong arms as they danced across a hay-strewn floor.
He’d been warm and so intimately close and had smelled of sunshine and wind and fragrant cologne. She’d wanted the dance to never end and then she’d awakened, appalled by what her brain had conjured up for a night fantasy.
She stepped back to the tent doorway and snapped her attention back to the scene before her, where Forest had stepped just inside the corral gate. He looked confident, yet at ease as the horse pawed the ground and eyed him in suspicion.
“Well, I’d love to stand around and watch Forest whisper, but we have work to do. Besides, I’m expecting Chief Bowie to show up sometime soon. I spoke to him this morning and told him we have enough information to indicate that the first victim we’ve put together from the top of the pit was definitely murdered.” Of course
